Legacy (1 of 4)

Sun 26 Jan 2014 AM

The next generation can receive without paying the price. However, they pay the price to expand and increase it. They can walk into that legacy, or they can lose it. God brings people into your life that you can draw from

I want to share a series called Legacy - what we leave to the next generation. Genesis 13:15.

Has anyone ever been to the reading of a Will? It's kind of mixed feelings, because you're sort of sad - but there's a good part to it: Something has been left. Whenever there's a Will, someone died, and there's something to receive - and that's what we call the new covenant. The new covenant - someone died and left something for us to receive - so we're all participators in a new covenant.

Jesus said: “To whom much is given, much is expected”. In Genesis 13:14, God spoke to Abram: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are - north, south, east and west - for all the land which you see, I give to you and your descendants forever”.

Key words: “Lift up your eyes...” (and look). Get vision!

“... all which you see”. You can never come into something you don't see - you have to see it before you'll enter it.

“...I give it to you and your descendants”. When God is thinking about you, and putting something in your life - it's not just for you.

He's the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob - God thinks generationally. He thinks in terms of: what is given to you growing, and being passed on to the next generation - growing and expanding.

Throughout the Bible, inheritance is extremely important. It was so important that every 50 years they had the Year of Jubilee - if you lost your inheritance it came back to you, and you had another chance again. You were set free. You got your land back, and you got a fresh start.

That's how important inheritance is from God's point of view, and He wants us to understand our inheritance. He wants us to understand the things that have been provided for us through what Jesus did on the cross.

I want to make it quite a lot more personal as we walk through this. So God intended that the inheritance that was to be passed on to Abraham would be passed on and cultivated, so each generation would expand, or receive increase on, what had already been given. That's how God works. He always works that way. He wants to increase

Notice that Abraham had to see it; then he had to arise and walk into it. Its one thing to see what God has provided for you; but it requires a decision to step up and make it your own.

Abraham never had to fight for it. He had to believe God for it; and walk - change his life, to appropriate what God had given him. That's what inheritance is about (spiritual inheritance).

The process of transferring that spiritual inheritance is called Discipleship. Jesus did not say: “Go and build a big church”. He said: “Go and make disciples”.

He didn't say: go - and I'll make you famous; go - and I'll make you rich; go - and I'll give you a comfortable life; go - and I'll promote you, and do all these things. He said: go and make disciples. So the process whereby, what one person has, is passed on to another (spiritually), is called Discipleship

It's precious when someone passes on to us something that cost them, or was an important part of their life.

Deuteronomy 29:29. “Now the secret things belong to God; but the things which are revealed belong to us - and belong to our children forever.

Same principle: if God reveals something to you, it's not just for you - it's for your children. That's literally your own family first.

We have a mindset that: we leave the training our children up to the church - but that's only an hour or two hours a week - it's never going to work. We actually have to take on the responsibility of the discipleship of our family ourselves. God intends that whatever's revealed to you as a parent - it is passed on - it belongs to the children.

It says here: “...belongs to the children, so that we may do the works of this law”.

A legacy is firstly just property, or money, or something that is passed on from one generation to another; or one person to another. You could have a watch that's passed on, that belonged to your grandfather - something that was handed down to you.